Labour-supporting family’s fury as ‘evil’ widow leaves £770k to the Tory party

A FAMILY of diehard Labour supporters are fuming after a “wicked battle-axe” widow left her husband’s £770,000 fortune to the Conservative Party.

Violet Baker left the huge sum of money to the Tory party despite having seemed politically neutral [NEWSTEAM]

Violet Baker, who appeared to be politically neutral all her life, was attacked yesterday for handing Ray Baker’s money to his sworn enemies in their biggest ever political bequest.

She cut her relatives out of her will, gifting the inheritance to the Tories with a remaining £2,000 going to a friend who cared for her in her dying days.

Her furious sister-in-law Elsie Clark, 88, said: “My poor brother would be spinning in his grave if he knew Violet had given his hard-earned cash to the Tories.

“Violet knew our family was staunch Labour.

“Our dad was very strict about that. He said, ‘As soon as you’re old enough to vote, vote Labour.

“All that money was left to her and she didn’t want us to get our hands on it, she was a wicked woman, a battle-axe.

“I don’t know what she was politically. She wouldn’t go out to vote in an election.”

Violet's husband Ray Baker was a staunch supporter of the Labour party [NEWSTEAM]

All that money was left to her and she didn’t want us to get our hands on it, she was a wicked woman, a battle-axe

Elsie Clark

Violet and Ray, a Second World War veteran who fought with the Gurkhas, had no children and lived in the same modest semi in Acocks Green, Birmingham for 40 years.

But Ray was a shrewd investor and had quietly amassed a £500,000 fortune in stocks, shares and bonds – which he left to his wife when he died five years ago. By the time she died the amount had swelled to nearly £800,000.

Relatives claim Violet failed to notify them of his death and froze them out of the funeral proceedings.

Mrs Clark, who lives in a council bungalow in Redditch, Worcs, said: “I didn’t even know he had died. She had him cremated and nobody knew. She sent me a short letter saying, ‘Your brother has passed away’. He had been cremated the day I received the note.

“We visited her and tried to help but she was so bitter. She didn’t want anything to do with anyone.”

Her nephew, David Winters, 63, of Dorridge, West Midlands, said Violet, who died last April, and Ray had not been seen by the family since the 1980s.

Violet’s neighbour Malcolm Baker, 64, who is no relation but looked after her during the last three years of her life, said her motto was “buy the cheapest”.

He claimed she once accused him of stealing 2p after he had done her weekly shopping.